


The coward's way

by Vault_Emblem



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Lies, Ned-centric, cowardice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-15
Updated: 2018-11-15
Packaged: 2019-08-24 01:01:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16629884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vault_Emblem/pseuds/Vault_Emblem
Summary: Ned has always been a coward.





	The coward's way

**Author's Note:**

> Damn you Clint, why did you create Ned? He has everything that makes me interested in a character and even more.  
> Jk I love you Clint.

There’s a principle according to which Ned Chicane has always lived: he’s a coward. This counts, of course, also for when he had to choose where to steal form and where not to.

His victims were always single parents with kids, elderly people, basically everyone that he wouldn’t have to fight, either because they wouldn’t be at home or because they’d be too weak to do so.

It’s his way of being, his way of life. Everything about him screams “coward”.

 

His dad used to call him a coward when he would be cowering in fear after believing to have seen something lurking in the shadows, his peers used to call a coward whenever he refused to get involved in a fistfight, hell, even Boyd used to call him a coward when he tried to convince him not to pull any heist that was too risky.

It’s not that he doesn’t enjoy the thrill of the hunt or the satisfaction of pulling off a successful heist, but he needed – still needs – certainty in his life, and this wasn’t the way he was going to get that.

 

A life of burglary wasn’t going to give that to him either, but Ned has always been full of contradictions, like any other human being after all. He’s learned to live with them.

 

You know, he takes pride in being a coward. He owns that shit.

So what if he is one? He’s living so much better than so many other people who may be considered “brave”.

Besides, he doesn’t call it cowardice, he calls it caution. This way it sounds way better, doesn’t it?

 

 

It’s his “caution” that led to him and Boyd deciding to rob what he now knows was Aubrey’s house. He was there during that fateful night, that fateful fire. One could say that he was the cause of it.

 

Thinking about it now, losing his Lincoln seemed too little of a price to pay for the sorrow he caused – and keeps causing, because Aubrey’s alive and the event still hurts her.

 

He… he never meant for any of this.

He never meant for anyone to get hurt, but this doesn’t really matter in the face of justice now, doesn’t it?

 

With knowledge also comes indecision: what should Ned do, now?

If he was brave he would’ve spilled the beans; he would’ve told Aubrey the truth and he would’ve accepted whatever punished she would think he was deserving of, because yes, he does deserve punishment for his deeds.

 

He loves Aubrey dearly – maybe even like a daughter but he always tries not to think too much about that – and, despite the perpetual confusion, he’s having fun in this little adventure of theirs.

He’s a coward, however, and he fears what will happen if he tells her.

 

It’s not fair, but when has the world ever been fair?

 

He doesn’t want to lose her friendship, he doesn’t want to lose any of the others’ friendship, so he does what he does best: he lies, pretending that he didn’t hear anything of what Aubrey said to Mama, pretending that he never was at her house the night of the fire, pretending that he’s fine and that he’s not sorry for all the pain he’s caused.

 

This is the coward’s way.


End file.
